


pomegranate chapstick and brimstone

by yrbeecharmer



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: College, Dorms, M/M, New Rome University, Nico & pomegranates, RA Will, Sleepy Cuddles, past Tartarus experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29387313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrbeecharmer/pseuds/yrbeecharmer
Summary: Will has a literal decade of experience sleeping through chaos and commotion. In the cabin; in the infirmary; not so much in Tartarus, because if he’d slept soundly there he’d be dead; now here, in the dorm. He onlyhearsthe thumps around two in the morning—one boot, then another getting kicked off—because he went to bed less than half an hour ago, and hasn’tquitemanaged to get all the way to sleep yet.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 12
Kudos: 111





	pomegranate chapstick and brimstone

**Author's Note:**

> once again I bring you an unbeta'ed mostly-fluffy-ish one shot written (mostly) at 2 am and set at 2 am. set about 5 years post-Tower of Nero, so 2nd year of college. contains discussions of sex and drug & alcohol use, cause, college.

  


After years of sleeping in a camp cabin full of his siblings, when Will first got to New Rome, sharing a dorm room with just _one_ person was amazing. In his second year, being an RA and having a room to himself—it’s been luxurious beyond belief. Even though it’s only really a room to himself about half the time. Or maybe especially because of that. 

It’s still noisy in the dorm, because it’s a _dorm_ —there are always doors slamming, showers running, people playing music, quiet hours be damned. People talking in the parking lot below the windows on this side of the building, and cars rolling up to drop them off after big nights out, especially since it’s the weekend. Fortunately, Will has a literal decade of experience sleeping through chaos and commotion. In the cabin; in the infirmary; not so much in Tartarus, because if he’d slept soundly there he’d be dead; now here, in the dorm. He only _hears_ the thumps around two in the morning—one boot, then another getting kicked off—because he went to bed less than half an hour ago, and hasn’t _quite_ managed to get all the way to sleep yet. 

Cracking an eye open, Will watches sleepily as Nico, cast even more in black and white than usual by night, drops his jacket on Will’s desk chair, then strips out of his jeans and socks and pulls his shirt off over his head. The fabric rustles as it falls to the carpeted floor. He never makes a sound shadow-traveling in at night—it’s just the process of undressing that adds to the background noise. 

“Hi, baby.” Will rolls most of the way onto his back and shifts over so he’s up against the wall on one side, making as much room in the too-narrow twin XL as he possibly can. 

“Shit,” Nico whispers, climbing into bed in his underwear to take up all that room and then some, settling half his body on Will’s chest, “did I wake you up?” 

“Like getting in bed all cold and half-naked wouldn’t have woken me up anyway,” Will points out. “But nah, I wasn’t asleep yet.” He pulls the covers back up and wraps an arm around Nico’s waist, feeling for any sign of trouble—nothing. Still, “You okay?” he asks. He hasn’t seen Nico in almost a week—he’s been in the Underworld, doing some errands for his father, while Will was up here struggling through the less-godly trials of a beyond-blacked-out eighteen-year-old and an o-chem midterm. 

“Completely,” Nico assures him. He’s cold to the touch, just like he always is after shadow-travel— 

“Gods, your toes are _freezing._ ” Will jerks his leg away as Nico tries to get them under the hem of his pajama pants, and crashes into the wall. “Ow.” 

“Sorry.” 

“‘S okay.” Will rubs his back, wondering if he should take his own t-shirt off—then _he’d_ be colder, but only for a little bit, since skin to skin contact will warm Nico up faster. Too much work, he decides. He’s too tired, and they’d both have to move, and they’re already getting comfortable. Instead he just presses his hand between Nico’s shoulder blades, trying to get just the _warm_ part of healing to flow through his palm without the actual healing part. Nico shivers, but that actually means it’s probably working some. “You have a good time in the Underworld?” Will asks. 

“As good as possible.” Nico rests his head on the pillow, chin against Will’s shoulder. “What did I miss here?” Will sighs. 

“A shitty week. A resident got alcohol poisoning. She’s just fine now, thank the gods, but I almost overslept my exam the next morning. And probably failed anyway.” 

“Oh, no, baby.” Nico pushes up to his elbows to brush his hair back from his face and kiss his forehead. “I'm so sorry, if I could’ve—” 

“Oh, it’s okay. It’s fine,” Will tells him. “I signed up for this.” He smiles up at Nico, because it’s hard to worry about any of that _now,_ when it’s this late and he’s this tired and he has his boyfriend lying mostly on top of him, starting to warm up. “Did you miss me?” Nico sighs. 

“So much.” His dark eyes fall to Will’s lips, so Will sets a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him down to kiss him. Then he keeps kissing him, because he hasn’t kissed him in like a week, and for once he tastes really nice in spite of the shadow-travel— 

“Are you—is that _pomegranate flavored_ chapstick?” 

“Mm-hmm.” Nico smiles against his mouth. “I was down in the hot and dry parts for a couple days, so Persephone gave me some. Dad doesn’t think it’s as funny as we do.” 

“Gods, I love you.” Will kisses him some more. Nico smooths down his hair with the gentlest hand in the world and says, 

“I love you too, but I—don’t think I’m up for anything more intense than this tonight.” 

“Oh, no, I can tell,” Will says, because he can—Nico’s post-shadow-travel condition isn’t as precarious as it could be, but he definitely needs to sleep and eat before getting up to _any_ more physical exertion. And preferably shower, too. The pomegranate is nice, but his hair still kind of smells like brimstone, and that’s one thing Will’s brain won't ever manage to reframe as sexy. “That’s okay. I wasn’t—it’s like two in the morning. I’m too sleepy to be up for it in _any_ way.” Nico shifts his leg where it’s sprawled over Will’s, and for a second Will almost thinks maybe he’s planning to test that after all, but then Nico just settles in more comfortably against his body. 

“Morning sex?” he suggests, pressing another pomegranate-scented kiss to the side of Will’s neck, just above his t-shirt collar. Will sighs. 

“How about morning dining hall brunch, and then, since it’s Saturday and I don’t have to do anything _else_ …” He skates his fingers down Nico’s back. 

“Wait, it’s Friday?” The streetlight through the blinds on Will’s dorm window casts stripes across Nico’s frown. 

“Technically not anymore,” Will says. 

“ _Fuck,_ I lost a day.” Nico sighs. “I’m sorry, I thought it was Thursday. I had a whole Friday night date plan.” 

“Aw, that’s okay. We’ve still got all weekend.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” Nico sighs. “But if we go Saturday night then it’ll be Sunday, and you’ll have no time left to get ready for the new week…” 

“Oh, were you planning for this date to extend overnight?” Will grins in the dark. “You scoundrel.” Nico snickers, then laughs harder into Will’s shoulder when Will smacks his butt gently under the covers. “Were you gonna whisk me away somewhere nice?” He does that sometimes, on weekends when Will doesn’t have RA obligations or a big exam coming up—shadow-travels them to another city, with good food and a nice hotel to stay in and somewhere cool to go explore in the morning, all on the apparently-unlimited credit card from the Bank of the Underworld, or whatever it is exactly. 

None of their friends has actually _made_ a sugar daddy joke in so many words—yet. But then, these days Will makes enough jokes about being into rich older men himself that they don’t really have to. 

“I don’t know about somewhere _nice_ ,” Nico says now. “I wanted to go camping.” 

“Camping?” 

“You know, someplace warm, and—away from it all, and stuff. I could use some fresh air, and I figured you could use some quiet time and, like, privacy.” 

“Well, as dates go, that sounds like it’d be fucking intense,” Will jokes, because he figures Nico was just setting him up for that one. He’s pretty sure he’s right—Nico smiles sleepily in the broken light. 

“Just the _one_ tent.” 

“It wouldn’t work to go tomorrow night anyway,” Will admits—“I have to be on duty. I wasn’t sure when you’d get back, so I swapped with Leila so she can have a hot date.” 

“Ugh, _no,_ ” Nico groans against his shoulder. “But _I_ wanted a hot date.” RA duty rounds are very much the opposite of a hot date. Will pats Nico’s back contritely. 

“I’m sorry. You said _about_ a week on Sunday, so I was assuming that included tomorrow.” Today. Whatever. 

“It’s okay.” Nico presses his face into Will’s t-shirt. “Can I come with you?” he asks, muffled, then looks up again to add, “it was really fun that time you caught those first-years smoking weed and I got to freak them out.” 

“Fun for _you._ It wasn’t fun for them or for me,” Will reminds him, and Nico makes a penitent little noise and kisses his cheek. “I don’t think they _ever_ take me as seriously when my boyfriend’s tagging along,” he adds. “Cause with you there, they don’t think _I’m_ taking it seriously.” To be fair, they’re not... exactly... wrong. No one’s told on him to the administration, though, so that’s cool of them. 

“Yeah, that’s the best part.” Will can hear Nico smiling. He sighs. In terms of not getting narced on, it definitely helps that this dorm is almost _entirely_ Roman, and Will’s residents in particular think it’s really cool that their RA’s boyfriend is their old Praetor’s hot goth-punk brother, the freaking _Ambassador of Pluto._ They’re in awe of Nico, and therefore also Will, for getting someone so badass and terrifying to fall for him. They don't care if Will's taking his RA duties seriously—they still think he's cool, and so they mostly do what he says anyway, even if he gets the sense they're kind of humoring him. 

But if any of the like five Greek kids who came to NRU the year behind Will were on his floor... well, not that any of them would rat them out either, but _they_ all know that Will and Nico are really just huge nerds. Thank the gods, Will thinks, not for the first time, that Cecil lives on the other side of campus. He’s not even slightly Will’s problem. Instead he still gets to just be his friend. 

“Let’s see what happens tomorrow.” He suspects that even if Nico actually _can_ wake up for brunch and a… quiet day in, he’ll be falling asleep again a lot earlier than two in the morning. “Camping next weekend, maybe?” 

“Okay.” They lie still for a while, quiet, just cuddling. Nico finally feels totally warm against Will’s chest, and soft as he’s getting sleepier. Will always loves lying like this, feeling the weight of him. The _solidity._ But just as his thoughts are starting to muddle on the verge of dreams, Nico pulls him back to consciousness—he’s shifting around a little, like he can’t quite get comfortable. “Can we—” 

“Yeah,” Will says without needing him to finish the question—he loves this position, can fall asleep like this, easy, but he knows it’s not what Nico prefers. “Roll over, little spoon.” 

“Mm. Love you.” 

“You too. You know, your hair smells kind of sulfury,” Will mumbles in Nico’s ear as he does roll over, and Will gets one arm under the pillow and the other around Nico so he’s wrapped around him from behind. “What were you _doing_ down there?” 

“Ugh. Stuff.” Nico sighs. “Is that gonna give you bad dreams?” Scent _can_ be a pretty potent sense memory trigger, they both know. And brimstone is more normal to Nico, or at least less _specifically_ awful, since it’s found in parts of the Fields of Punishment and a lot of general magic stuff—but to Will, it’s always going to be Tartarus. Always. The one freshman chem lab where he used sulfur wasn’t enough to change that. 

“It might, but it’s okay.” Will kisses Nico's hair and tries to breathe in and tell himself it _is_ okay—he’s safe. They’re both safe. “I’d rather sleep holding you than not. It’s just like old times,” he tries to joke. 

It’s only sort of a joke, though. It _is_ like old times. They’ve been sleeping this way since Tartarus—the first time they slept together, literally, way before they ever did it euphemistically. Will with his back to the wall of the shallow cave, Nico facing the mouth, ready to wake up and deal with whatever came after them. Quietly putting himself between Will and danger. 

“Sap.” Down there, Nico slept with one hand on his sword hilt. Almost five years later, he laces his fingers through Will’s where he’s settled his hand on his stomach under the covers. 

“Mm-hmm. Besides, if I have nightmares you’ll just come break me out of them, right?” Will hasn’t totally gotten the hang of the whole lucid dreaming thing, not like Nico has, but they’ve long since agreed it’s okay to do together sometimes. It never gets too involved, since Nico is a lot better at controlling dreams and navigating through them than Will is—and he's good about boundaries. Will trusts him. It’s just nice when Nico can come pull him out of a bad dream and into a good one, where instead of either one of them being back in Tartarus they just get to, like, hang out at the beach together. 

“Yeah.” Nico squeezes his hand and echoes his thoughts: “If I can’t take you somewhere nice in real life, I’ll do it in dreamland.” 

“It’s a date,” Will agrees. 

“See you in your dreams,” Nico murmurs. Will kisses the back of his neck. 

“See you in my dreams.” 

  


**Author's Note:**

> @yrbeecharmer on [tumblr](https://yrbeecharmer.tumblr.com).


End file.
